02 February, 2007

Two Unrelated Things

Thing One

It apparently snowed between 11:45pm (when I went to bed) and 4:30am (when I woke up). I just let the dogs out to do the things dogs are not allowed to do in the house and they both looked at me accusingly. I swear they thought the snow was some prank I pulled just to make them angry in the early morning. So much for my romantic notions of these two wolfbreeds frollicking playfully in the drifts. Thing Two

Yes, I'm blogging about bad customer service, because I want opinions on whether it's bad customer service or I'm just being a grumpy cow. Yesterday I was at a fabric, craft and yarn store which shares a name with my mother. I was behind the all-time worst customer in the world. (She wrote a check, didn't start filling it out until the order was rung up, forgot she had a discount, made the checker re-ring the order and then realised she'd left an item in her cart which necessitated writing another check, etc.) A line began to form behind us as the fusion between Bad Customer and Scatterbrained Clerk worked it's time-stopping magic.

After about five minutes another clerk opened the next register. That's when he committed what I consider to be the cardinal sin. Instead of taking me first--the next person in line--he took a couple Jilly come latelies from behind me. Leaving me to be in line behind Molasses Lady for another three minutes.

Maybe I'm petty, but MAN I hate that. If I'm next in line, ring me up next on the new register. Am I wrong?

6 Comments:

Yup. I feel your pain. That always frosts my butt too (the open new line thing and take the johnny-come-latelys). And snow! Woot! My daughter wore her jammies inside out again... I'd never heard of it but I think all the kids in the area will probably be doing that from now on.

I hate when I know that they need to open a new register so I don't get in line because I know they will eventually figure out they need to open a new one, but then I get in line anyway... only to be stuck behind slow-poke when they finally open the other one. Grrrr.

And the playful jumping the snow isn't all it's cracked up to be. LaFawnduh won't do her bidnez unless I'm out there with her, and she decided to do circus tricks for an hour.

I HATE that. I can't remember if I posted about it, but that happened to me at the BW Target Photo counter a couple of weeks ago, only it was the employee what was terrible, not the customer I was behind. While her manager tried to sort out her issue (that the employee had kinda caused), the employee went and started to help someone who'd just come up, and I raised hell, as I'd been standing there for 20 minutes already. I will flat out tell someone, whether it be customer or cashier, that I was next in line, or that someone else was, whatever, because 1 I believe in fairness and 2 I'm a pretty big bitch.

Regarding the craft store, if it's the one I'm thinking of, I'm wondering if the one you went to has the same new cashier configuration that the one in Cool Springs does....I'm not sure I like it AT ALL.

I hate that you have to stand in the exact center of the self-service check out line at Kroger or people will assume you're waiting for one of the four station specifically. We were standing there the other day waiting for one to come available, but were standing apparently off just a bit to the left. This woman walks up and stands directly to our right (not behind us), clearly with the intention of taking the next available station if it opened on the right instead of the left. She must have caught me giving her dirty looks, because when the next station came open (on the right of course), she looked at me and gave me this bubblely "Why don't you guys go ahead before us?" To which I mentally responded, "Well that is the lines are supposed to work, isn't it?"

That always makes me so frustrated! Especially when it has been a long wait and I don't have much to check out. I wish we could just do away with checks in stores (or at least make all the check writers check out in the same line - they can all waste each other's time).

I have been impressed lately at stores where the clerk at the new register goes out of his/her way to point to the next person in line to come over to the new one. I guess managers are beginning to get the message.

I gotta say, though, the time I really about lost it was when I was running late and waiting at the Kroger self check out line, only one of the stations was working, and the lady who was occupying said station decided to pay in NICKELS. I'm not kidding. THere was a Coinstar 10 feet away. THe clerk running the self checkout area said nothing. Grr.

This sister thing is weird sometimes. The EXACT same thing happened to me today at a similar store with a rhyming name. The only difference was that when the new cashier finished with the lady who had been behind me, I stepped over and got checked out before any more johnny come latelys could beat me to it.